The UK government has pledged £40m to fund a new AI research lab, as part of a wider push to bolster the country’s tech sovereignty.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House last January, mounting geopolitical tensions have intensified concerns over Europe’s reliance on American tech services, fuelling efforts to support and scale homegrown tech companies.
In November, the UK established a new sovereign AI unit, led by Balderton Capital partner James Wise, tasked with helping build and scale AI capabilities in the UK, with close to £500m in investment allocated.
Now the government has pledged an initial £40m over six years to establish a new lab for “blue-sky” AI research, aiming to use the technology to make breakthroughs in healthcare, transport and science.
“AI is already doing things we could never have imagined just a few years ago, like helping to diagnose cancer,” says AI minister Kanishka Narayan. “But if we want this technology to be a force for good, we need to make sure the next big AI breakthroughs are made in Britain.”
He adds: “This is a long-term investment in the brilliant minds who will keep the UK in the AI fast lane. If we are the ones breaking new ground on what AI can do, we can make sure our values are baked in from the outset.”
The government is accepting applications from AI experts across the country until the end of March, with a maximum award of £9.4m available, as well as access to compute capacity worth “tens of millions of pounds”.
Applications will be peer reviewed by a panel chaired by Raia Hadsell, a VP of research at Google DeepMind and one of the UK’s recently-appointed AI ambassadors.
She says: “The UK has the world-class talent and academic ecosystem to drive transformational research and I am excited to see the proposals that emerge from this call.”
